Creating a filter

In this guide, we will cover:
Knowing your criteria
Creating a filter
Adding criteria to your filter
The difference between ‘at least one of the following criteria’ or ‘all of the following criteria’
Viewing the results

Knowing your criteria

First things first, before you begin creating your filter, you need to know the criteria for your filter in order to return your desired results.

To find out exactly which fields you need in your filter, head to your contacts tab and view a contact which you know meets the criteria you are after – this will give you the information you need.

In the example below, we are looking for anyone who is subscribed and Status equals Active. Highlighted are the two fields we are looking for, from this we can see we are looking to a checkbox [this will appear as a Yes/No when building the filter] and a drop down field [this will appear as a dropdown when building the filter].

--------------------

Creating a filter

First, go to the Contacts tab via the platform toolbar located at the top of the page.

To create a new filter, go to step 3.

To edit an existing filter, go to step 4.

 To create a new filter, click on ‘filter’ and then click new, as shown below.

To edit an existing filter, click on that filter from the dropdown list and then click ‘edit’ – once the filter has loaded.

--------------------

Adding criteria to your filter

To add a new expression, click the ‘+’ button. From here, you can add as many expressions as you want to include or exclude contacts in your filter.

To create a new expression, you will need to choose a ‘field name’, ‘operator’, and ‘value’. These will be explained in more depth across the next few steps.

Field name: Once you have clicked ‘add expression’, the following line will appear, as shown in the below image.

Find the field that you want to apply a rule to from the dropdown list provided. In the example below, we have built expressions for ‘status’, ‘subscribed’ and ‘email address’.

Operator: Some of the available options include: ‘equals’, ‘contains’, ‘starts with' etc.

Value: This quantifies the ‘field name’ element, i.e. if we want to have a filter expression that only selects active and subscribed contacts, we would need to set the value as ‘active’ and ‘yes’, respectively. Refer to the image below for an example of what this would look like.

Note: The value will not always be a dropdown list. Where this is the case, a text box will be available for you to type the value.

If you have gone through an example contact, you can find the exact value as it is logged in your BriefYourMarket data.

--------------------

The difference between ‘at least one of the following criteria’ or ‘all of the following criteria’

At least one of the following criteria

When applied to the below example, if at least one of the following criteria applies to a contact in your database, i.e. if they are subscribed, active, or have an email address that contains an ‘@’ sign, the filter will pull them through and include them in your filter contact list.

All of the following criteria

When applied to the below example, if all of the following criteria applies to a contact in your database, i.e. they are subscribed, active, and have an email address that contains an ‘@’ sign, they will be pulled through.

Once you have finished your filter, click save and close it in order to be redirected back to the ‘contacts’ page.

--------------------

Viewing the results

To see what contacts are in your filter, go back into the ‘filter’ tab. Drop down the box, click on the filter, and it will load the contacts that meet the criteria.